---
title: "Cook, Restaurant"
description: "Prepare, season, and cook dishes such as soups, meats, vegetables, or desserts in restaurants. May order supplies, keep records and accounts, price items…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-restaurant"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Cook, Restaurant

**Category:** Food Preparation and Serving Related · **SOC code:** 35-2014 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 35-2014.00

Prepare, season, and cook dishes such as soups, meats, vegetables, or desserts in restaurants. May order supplies, keep records and accounts, price items on menu, or plan menu.

Also advertised as: Back Line Cook; Banquet Cook; Breakfast Cook; Cook; Fry Cook; Grill Cook; Line Cook; Prep Cook (Preparation Cook).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $37,390 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $17.98/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $28,700 to $47,900, with the middle half between $34,010 and $44,620
- **Total US employment:** 1,409,890
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +14.9% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 250,700 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 44/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 1,409,890 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $28,700 |
| 25th | $34,010 |
| 50th (median) | $37,390 |
| 75th | $44,620 |
| 90th | $47,900 |
| Mean (average) | $38,730 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $46,800 | $43,733 | 35,140 |
| DC | $46,130 | $41,974 | 7,720 |
| MA | $45,600 | $43,118 | 29,570 |
| HI | $45,420 | $41,309 | 11,090 |
| VT | $45,390 | $46,336 | 2,360 |
| ME | $45,290 | $46,667 | 5,130 |
| CA | $44,880 | $40,535 | 152,250 |
| NY | $43,680 | $40,474 | 71,530 |
| OR | $43,100 | $41,699 | 21,550 |
| CO | $41,600 | $40,368 | 30,600 |
| NH | $40,200 | $38,593 | 7,190 |
| AK | $40,140 | $39,215 | 2,350 |
| CT | $39,480 | $38,104 | 14,830 |
| AZ | $38,670 | $38,410 | 30,870 |
| NV | $38,610 | $38,618 | 27,250 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-restaurant/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cook-restaurant.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,460,200 in the 2024–2034 base year to 1,677,200 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 217,000 jobs, or +14.9%. Much faster than average: 14.9% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 250,700 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** No formal educational credential (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 47.3% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 34.4% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 11.8% |
| Some College Courses | 6.4% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 0.1% |

## What the work involves

- Turn or stir foods to ensure even cooking.
- Ensure freshness of food and ingredients by checking for quality, keeping track of old and new items, and rotating stock.
- Portion, arrange, and garnish food, and serve food to waiters or patrons.
- Season and cook food according to recipes or personal judgment and experience.
- Substitute for or assist other cooks during emergencies or rush periods.
- Observe and test foods to determine if they have been cooked sufficiently, using methods such as tasting, smelling, or piercing them with utensils.
- Ensure food is stored and cooked at correct temperature by regulating temperature of ovens, broilers, grills, and roasters.
- Wash, peel, cut, and seed fruits and vegetables to prepare them for consumption.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operations Monitoring — importance 2.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Quality Control Analysis — importance 2.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Food Production — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Production and Processing — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 2.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Near Vision — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Manual Dexterity — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.63 |
| C — Conventional | 3.80 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.69 |
| S — Social | 2.88 |
| A — Artistic | 2.71 |
| I — Investigative | 1.56 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 75.6 |
| ISTJ | 73.5 |
| ISFJ | 70.0 |
| ESFJ | 67.5 |
| ESTP | 62.6 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Cook, Short Order](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-short-order) — median $35,880
- [Cook, Institution and Cafeteria](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-institution-and-cafeteria) — median $37,450
- [Food Preparation Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-preparation-worker) — median $35,320
- [Baker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/baker) — median $37,160
- [Cook, Fast Food](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-fast-food) — median $30,890
- [Butcher and Meat Cutter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/butcher-and-meat-cutter) — median $40,140
- [Cook, Private Household](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cook-private-household) — median $47,940
- [Chef](https://nuecareer.com/careers/chef) — median $62,470
- [Food Cooking Machine Operator and Tender](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-cooking-machine-operator-and-tender) — median $41,590
- [Food Batchmaker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/food-batchmaker) — median $42,290

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/cook-restaurant